(Loud ovation. The entire hall rises and applauds. The speaker attempts to speak, but applause and exclamations in all languages continue. The ovation lasts a long time.) Comrades, the theses on the fundamental tasks of the Communist International[20] have been published in all languages and (especially for our Russian comrades) they do not represent anything essentially new, since they distribute to a considerable extent some basic features of our revolutionary experience and the lessons of our revolutionary movement to a whole series of Western countries, to Western Europe. Therefore, in my report I shall dwell somewhat more, though only in brief outline, on the first part of the subject assigned to me, namely on the international situation.

The basis of the entire international situation as it has now developed is the economic relations of imperialism. Throughout the twentieth century this new, highest, and final stage of capitalism has become fully defined. You are of course all acquainted with how the most characteristic, essential features of imperialism were that capital reached enormous dimensions. In place of free competition came monopoly of gigantic proportions. An insignificant number of capitalists could concentrate in their hands sometimes entire branches of industry; they passed into the hands of unions, cartels, syndicates, trusts, often of an international character. Thus entire branches of industry became seized by monopolists in financial matters, in matters of ownership rights, and partly in matters of production, and not only in individual countries but throughout the entire world. On this basis there developed an unprecedented dominion of an insignificant number of the largest banks, financial kings, financial magnates, who in fact transformed even the freest republics into financial monarchies. Before the war this was openly acknowledged, for example, by such decidedly non-revolutionary writers as Lysis in France.

This dominion of a handful of capitalists reached its complete development when the entire terrestrial globe had been divided not only in the sense of the seizure of various sources of raw materials and means of production by the largest capitalists, but also in the sense of the completion of the preliminary partition of colonies. Some forty years ago it was reckoned that slightly more than a quarter of a billion of the colonial population was subject to six capitalist powers. Before the war of 1914, the colonial population was reckoned at approximately six hundred million, and if we add such countries as Persia, Turkey, China, which at that time already occupied the position of semicolonies, we obtain in round figures a billion of population which was oppressed by the richest, most civilized, and freest countries by means of colonial dependence. And you know that, aside from direct state juridical dependence, colonial dependence presupposes a whole series of relationships of financial and economic dependence, presupposes a whole series of wars which were not counted as wars, because they often amounted to slaughter, when armed with the most perfected instruments of destruction European and American imperialist troops massacred the unarmed and defenseless inhabitants of colonial countries.

From this partition of the entire earth, from this dominion of capitalist monopoly, from this omnipotence of an insignificant number of the largest banks—two, three, four, five per state, no more—there grew with inevitability the first imperialist war of 1914–1918. The war was waged in order to repartition the entire world. The war was waged over which of the insignificant groups of the largest states—the English or German—would obtain the possibility and right to rob, strangle, exploit the entire earth. And you know how the war decided this question in favor of the English group. And as a result of this war we have an immeasurably greater intensification of all capitalist contradictions. The war immediately cast approximately a quarter of a billion of the earth's population into a position equivalent to colonial. It cast Russia, which must be reckoned at approximately 130 million, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, in which there are not less than 120 million. A quarter of a billion of population—in countries which belong partly, like Germany, to the most advanced, most enlightened, cultured, and technically standing at the level of contemporary progress. The war, by means of the Versailles Treaty, imposed upon them such conditions that the advanced peoples found themselves in the position of colonial dependence, poverty, hunger, ruin, and disenfranchisement, for they are bound by the treaty for many generations and placed in such conditions in which no civilized people has ever lived. You have before your eyes a picture of the world: after the war immediately not less than a billion and a quarter of population is subjected to colonial oppression, is subjected to exploitation by savage capitalism, which boasted of peacefulness, and fifty years ago had some right to boast of this, while the earth had not been divided, while monopoly did not dominate, while capitalism could develop comparatively peacefully, without colossal military conflicts.

Now, after this "peaceful" epoch, we have received a monstrous intensification of oppression, we see a return to oppression both colonial and military, even worse than before. The Versailles Treaty placed both Germany and a whole series of defeated states in conditions of material impossibility of economic existence, in conditions of complete disenfranchisement and humiliation.

What number of nations benefited from this? To answer this question, we must recall that the population of the United States of America, which alone completely won from the war, which completely transformed itself from a country which had masses of debts into a country to which everyone owes money—its population is not more than 100 million. The population of Japan, which gained very much, remaining outside the European-American conflict and seizing a huge Asian continent, equals 50 million. The population of England, which after these countries gained the most, reaches 50 million. And if we add the neutral states with very small populations which became wealthy during the war, we obtain, in round figures, a quarter of a billion.

You obtain thus in broad outline a picture of the world as it took shape after the imperialist war. A billion and a quarter of oppressed colonies—countries which are being partitioned alive, like Persia, Turkey, China; countries which have been defeated and thrown into the position of colonies. Not more than a quarter of a billion—these are countries which survived in the old position, but they all fell into economic dependence on America and all during the war were in military dependence, for the war seized the whole world, it did not allow any state to remain neutral in fact. And finally we have not more than a quarter of a billion of inhabitants in countries in which, of course, only the upper stratum, only the capitalists benefited from the partition of the earth. The sum—approximately one and three-quarters billion, comprising all the population of the earth. I wished to remind you of this picture of the world, because all the basic contradictions of capitalism, of imperialism, which lead to revolution, all the basic contradictions in the workers' movement, which led to the fiercest struggle with the Second International, about which our comrade chairman spoke—all this is connected with the partition of the earth's population.

Of course, only in rough, basic outline are these figures an illustration of the economic picture of the world. And, comrades, naturally, on the basis of such a partition of the earth's population the exploitation of financial capital, of capitalist monopolies has grown many times greater.

Not only the colonial, defeated countries fall into the position of dependence, but within each victorious country contradictions more acute have developed, all capitalist contradictions have been intensified. I shall briefly demonstrate this with several examples.

Take the state debts. We know that the debts of the principal European states grew from 1914 to 1920 by no less than seven times. I shall cite another economic source which acquires special great significance, that is Keynes, the English diplomat, author of the book "The Economic Consequences of the Peace," who by the assignment of his government participated in the Versailles peace negotiations, observed them directly from a purely bourgeois point of view, studied the matter step by step in detail, and as an economist participated in the conferences. He reached conclusions which are stronger, more graphic, more instructive than any conclusion of a communist revolutionary, because the conclusions are drawn by an avowed bourgeois, a ruthless opponent of Bolshevism, whom he pictures to himself, as an English philistine does, in a grotesque, savage, bestial form. Keynes reached the conclusion that Europe and the entire world with the Versailles Peace are heading toward bankruptcy. Keynes resigned, he flung his book in the face of the government and said: you are committing madness. I shall cite his figures, which in general amount to the following.

How did the debt relations between the principal powers develop? I translate pounds sterling into gold rubles, calculating 10 gold rubles per pound sterling. And here is what we get: the United States has an asset of 19 billion; a liability of zero. Before the war they were a debtor of England. Comrade Levy at the last Congress of the Communist Party of Germany, April 14, 1920, correctly pointed out in his report that two powers remained which now act independently in the world: England and America. Only America turned out to be in an absolutely independent financial position. Before the war it was a debtor, now it is only a creditor. All other powers of the world are in debt. England fell into such a position that its asset is 17 billion, its liability is 8 billion; it has already half fallen into the position of debtor. Furthermore, in its asset there entered approximately 6 billion which Russia owes. The military supplies which Russia made during the war are included in its debt. Recently, when Krasin had the opportunity to converse with Lloyd George as a representative of the Russian Soviet government on the subject of debt treaties, he made it graphically clear to the scholars and politicians, the leaders of the English government, that if they calculate on obtaining the debts they are strangely deluded. And this delusion has already been revealed by the English diplomat Keynes.

The matter, of course, is not only in that, and indeed not at all in that, that the Russian revolutionary government does not wish to pay debts. Any government whatever could not have paid, because these debts are a usurious reckoning of what has already been paid twenty times over, and this same bourgeois Keynes, not in the least sympathetic to the Russian revolutionary movement, says: "It is clear that these debts cannot be reckoned."

Regarding France Keynes cites figures of this kind: her asset equals three and a half billion, and her liability is ten and a half! And this is a country about which the French themselves said that it is the usurer of the entire world, because its "savings" were colossal, colonial and financial robbery, which constituted for it a gigantic capital, gave it the possibility of lending billions and billions, especially to Russia. From these loans there resulted gigantic income. And despite this, despite victory, France fell into the position of debtor.

One bourgeois American source, cited by comrade Brown, a communist, in his book "Who Must Pay the War Debts?" (Leipzig, 1920), determines the relation of debts to national property in this way: in the victorious countries, in England and France, debts comprise more than 50% of all national property. In the case of Italy this percentage comprises 60–70, in the case of Russia—90, but we, as you know, are not troubled by these debts, because we somewhat earlier than Keynes's book appeared, followed his excellent advice—we annulled all debts. (Loud applause.)

Keynes merely reveals in this the usual philistine oddity: giving his advice to annul all debts, he says that of course France will only gain, of course England will lose not very much, for in any case one can get nothing from Russia; America will lose considerably, but Keynes counts on American "nobility"! On this point we shall differ in views with Keynes and with other philistine pacifists. We think that in order to annul the debts they will have to wait for something else and work in some other direction, not in the direction of calculations on the "nobility" of the capitalist gentlemen.

From these very brief figures it is evident that the imperialist war also created for the victorious countries an impossible position. This is indicated by the enormous disparity between wages and the rise in prices. The Supreme Economic Council, which is an institution protecting the bourgeois order of the entire world against the growing revolution, on March 8 of the current year passed a resolution concluding with an appeal for order, industriousness, and thriftiness, of course on the condition that the workers remain slaves of capital. This Supreme Economic Council, the organ of the Entente, the organ of the capitalists of the entire world, drew such conclusions.

The prices of products increased on average in the United States of America by 120%, while wages there increased only by 100%. In England—products by 170%, wages by 130%. In France prices of products—by 300%, wages by 200%. In Japan—products by 130%, wages by 60% (I am comparing the figures of comrade Brown in his aforementioned pamphlet and the figures of the Supreme Economic Council from the newspaper "The Times"[94] of March 10, 1920).

It is clear that with such a situation the growth of workers' indignation, the growth of revolutionary sentiments and ideas, the growth of spontaneous mass strikes is inevitable. For the workers' position becomes unbearable. The workers convince themselves from experience that the capitalists have enriched themselves immeasurably from the war and are dumping the expenses and debts on the shoulders of the workers. Recently the telegraph informed us that America wishes to send to us, to Russia, another 500 communists in order to be rid of "harmful agitators."

Even if America sent not 500, but whole 500,000 Russian, American, Japanese, French "agitators" to us, the matter would not change, for this disparity of prices would remain, which they can do nothing about. And they can do nothing because private property among them is strictly guarded, with them it is "sacred." We must not forget this, for the private property of exploiters has been destroyed only in Russia. The capitalists cannot do anything about this disparity of prices, while the workers cannot live on the old wages. Against this calamity nothing can be done with the old methods, no separate strikes, nor parliamentary struggle, nor voting can do anything, for "private property is sacred," and the capitalists have accumulated such debts that the entire world is enslaved to a handful of people; and meanwhile the workers' conditions of life are becoming increasingly and increasingly unbearable. There is no way out except the destruction of the "private property" of the exploiters.

Comrade Lapinsky in his pamphlet "England and the World Revolution," from which our "Bulletin of the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs"[95] in February 1920 published valuable extracts, points out that in England the export prices of coal turned out to be twice as great as the official industrial circles had anticipated.

In Lancashire it reached the point that the growth in the value of shares was determined at 400%. Bank income comprises 40–50% minimum, and it must further be noted that in calculating bank income all banking figures know how to conduct the lion's share of income secretly, in such a way that it is not called income but is hidden under the guise of bonuses, shares of profits, etc. Thus here too unquestionable economic facts show that the wealth of an insignificant handful of people has grown incredibly, unheard-of luxury passes all bounds, and at the same time the necessity of the working class only increases. Particularly must we note further the circumstance which comrade Levy emphasized extremely graphically in his aforementioned report: this is the change in the value of money. Money everywhere has depreciated as a result of debts, the issue of paper money, etc. The same bourgeois source which I have already mentioned, namely the statement of the Supreme Economic Council of March 8, 1920, cites a calculation that in England the depreciation of money, in comparison with dollars, comprises approximately one third; in France and Italy—two thirds, and in Germany it reaches 96%.

This fact shows that the "machinery" of world capitalist economy is falling apart completely. Those trade relations on which, under capitalism, the obtaining of raw materials and the sale of products depend, there is no possibility of continuing; there is no possibility of continuing them precisely on the basis of the subjection of a whole series of countries to one country—as a result of the change in the value of money. Not one of the richest countries has the possibility to exist and has no possibility of trading, because it cannot sell its products, cannot obtain raw materials.

And thus it turns out that America itself, the richest country, to which all countries are subjected, cannot buy and sell. And the same Keynes, who has gone through fire and water and brass pipes of the Versailles negotiations, is forced to recognize this impossibility, despite all his unshakeable determination to defend capitalism, despite all his hatred toward Bolshevism. Incidentally, I do not think that any communist or generally revolutionary appeal could in its force be compared with those pages in Keynes where he portrays Wilson and "Wilsonism" in practice. Wilson was the idol of philistines and pacifists like Keynes and a number of heroes of the Second International (and even the "two and a half" International[96]), who prayed to the "Fourteen Points" and even wrote "scholarly" books about the "roots" of Wilson's policy, hoping that Wilson would save the "social peace," would reconcile the exploiters with the exploited, would realize social reforms. Keynes exposed graphically how Wilson turned out to be a fool, and all these illusions scattered to dust at the first contact with the practical, business, merchant politics of capital in the persons of Messrs. Clemenceau and Lloyd George. The workers' masses see now ever more clearly from the experience of their life, and the scholarly pedants could see even from Keynes's book, that the "roots" of Wilson's policy amounted only to priestly stupidity, to petty bourgeois phrase-mongering, to complete misunderstanding of class struggle.

In consequence of all this, two conditions, two fundamental positions flow out completely inevitably and naturally. On the one hand, the poverty, ruin of masses have grown to unprecedented heights, and first of all with respect to the one and a quarter billion people, i.e., 70% of the entire earth's population. These are colonial, dependent countries, with juridically disenfranchised populations, countries to which "mandates" have been issued to financial brigands. Yes, besides this, the slavery of defeated countries was cemented by the Versailles Treaty and those secret treaties which exist with respect to Russia, though to be sure in their force sometimes as real as the scraps of paper on which it is written that we owe so many billion. We have in world history the first instance of the juridical cementing of robbery, slavery, dependence, poverty, and hunger with respect to a billion and a quarter of people.

And on the other hand, in each of the countries which turned out to be creditors, the workers found themselves in an unbearable position. The war brought unprecedented intensification of all capitalist contradictions, and in this lies the source of that deepest revolutionary fermentation which is growing, for in the war people were placed in the conditions of military discipline, were thrown to death or placed under the threat of immediate military reprisal. The conditions of war did not allow the possibility of looking at economic reality. Writers, poets, priests, the entire press went into the matter of glorifying the war and only that. Now, when the war has ended, revelations have begun. German imperialism with its Brest-Litovsk Peace has been exposed. The Versailles Peace, which was to be the victory of imperialism, turned out to be its defeat. The example of Keynes shows, among other things, how tens and hundreds of thousands of people from the petty bourgeoisie, from the intelligentsia, from the number of simply somewhat educated, literate people in Europe and America had to go down this path which Keynes went, who resigned and flung his book in the face of his government, which it exposed. Keynes showed what will happen and will occur in the consciousness of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people when they understand that all these speeches about "war for freedom" etc. were nothing but pure deception, that as a result only an insignificant number became enriched, while the rest were ruined and fell into bondage. After all, the bourgeois Keynes says that the English must in order to save their lives, to save English economy strive for free trade relations to be resumed between Germany and Russia! How can this be achieved? In such a way that all debts be annulled, as Keynes proposes! This is not the idea of only one scholarly economist Keynes. Millions are coming to and will come to this idea. And millions of people hear that bourgeois economists say that there is no way out except the annulment of debts, and therefore, they say, "curses on the Bolsheviks" (who annulled the debts) and let us turn to the "nobility" of America!! – I think that such economists-agitators for Bolshevism ought to be sent from the name of the Congress of the Communist International a letter of gratitude.

If, on the one hand, the economic position of the masses turned out to be unbearable, if, on the other hand, among the insignificant minority of all-powerful victorious countries there has begun and is intensifying a disintegration illustrated by Keynes, then we see precisely the growth of both conditions of world revolution.

We have now before our eyes a somewhat fuller picture of the entire world. We know what this dependence means of a billion and a quarter of people on a handful of rich men who are placed in conditions of impossible existence. And on the other hand, when the nations were presented with the League of Nations treaty, by which the League of Nations declares that it has ended wars and henceforth will not allow anyone to violate the peace, when this treaty, as the last hope of the laboring masses throughout the world, went into effect, this proved to be a greatest victory for us. When it had not yet gone into effect, then they said: it is impossible not to subject such a country as Germany to special conditions; just wait until the treaty comes into effect, you will see how well it turns out. And when the treaty was published, fierce opponents of Bolshevism had to renounce it! When the treaty began to go into effect, it turned out that an insignificant group of richest countries, this "fat four"—Clemenceau, Lloyd George, Orlando, and Wilson—were seated to arrange new relations! When the machine of the treaty was set in motion, it led to complete disintegration!

We saw this in the wars against Russia. Weak, ruined, oppressed Russia, the most backward country struggles against all nations, against the union of rich, mighty powers which dominate the entire earth, and turns out to be victorious. We could not oppose an even remotely equal force, yet we turned out to be victors. Why? Because among them there was not a shadow of unity, because one power acted against another. France wanted Russia to pay her debts and to be a formidable force against Germany; England wanted partition of Russia, England tried to seize Baku oil and conclude a treaty with Russia's border states. And in English official documents there is a book in which with extraordinary conscientiousness are enumerated all the states (there were counted 14) which six months ago, in December 1919, promised to take Moscow and Petrograd. On these states England built its policy, gave them loans of millions and millions. But now all these calculations have collapsed, and all the loans have burst.

Here is the position which the League of Nations created. Each day of the existence of this treaty is the best agitation for Bolshevism. For the most mighty supporters of capitalist "order" show that on every question they trip each other up. Over the partition of Turkey, Persia, Mesopotamia, China there rages fierce bickering between Japan, England, America, and France. The bourgeois press of these countries is full of the fiercest attacks, the most enraged outbursts against their "colleagues" for tearing prey from under each other's noses. We see complete disintegration at the top among this handful of the tiniest number of richest countries. It is impossible for a billion and a quarter of people to live as the "advanced" and civilized capitalism wants to enslave them, and yet this is 70% of the earth's population. And the tiniest handful of richest powers, England, America, Japan (Japan had the possibility of robbing Eastern, Asian countries, but it cannot have any independent financial and military force without the support of another country), these 2–3 countries are not in a state to establish economic relations and direct their policy toward upsetting the policy of their participants and partners in the League of Nations. From this flows world crisis. And these economic roots of the crisis are the basic reason why the Communist International is achieving brilliant successes.

Comrades! We have now approached the question of the revolutionary crisis as the basis of our revolutionary action. And here we must first of all note two widespread errors. On the one hand, bourgeois economists portray this crisis as simple "uneasiness," to use the elegant expression of the English. On the other hand, sometimes revolutionaries attempt to prove that the crisis is absolutely hopeless.

This is an error. Absolutely hopeless positions do not exist. The bourgeoisie conduct themselves like a wild beast which has lost its head and become brazen; it makes folly after folly, intensifying the situation, hastening its own doom. All this is true. But one cannot "prove" in advance that there is absolutely no possibility that it could not lull such a minority of the exploited with such concessions, that it could not suppress such a movement or uprising of such a part of the oppressed and exploited. To attempt to "prove" in advance the "absolute" hopelessness would be empty pedantry or playing with concepts and words. The only true "proof" in this and similar questions can be practice. The bourgeois system throughout the world is experiencing the greatest revolutionary crisis. It is necessary to "prove" now through practice by the revolutionary parties that they have sufficient consciousness, organization, connection with the exploited masses, decisiveness, ability, to utilize this crisis for a successful, for a victorious revolution.

For the preparation of this "proof" we gathered mainly at this Congress of the Communist International.

As an example of the degree to which opportunism still dominates among parties wishing to join the Third International, of the degree to which the work of certain parties still falls short of preparing the revolutionary class to utilize the revolutionary crisis, I shall cite the leader of the English "Independent Labour Party," Ramsay MacDonald. In his book "Parliament and Revolution," devoted precisely to the fundamental questions which now occupy us, MacDonald describes the state of affairs roughly in the spirit of bourgeois pacifists. He acknowledges that a revolutionary crisis exists, that revolutionary sentiment is growing, that the workers' masses sympathize with Soviet power and the dictatorship of the proletariat (note: we are talking about England), that the dictatorship of the proletariat is better than the present dictatorship of English bourgeoisie.

But MacDonald remains thoroughly a bourgeois pacifist and compromiser, a petty bourgeois dreaming of an extra-class government. MacDonald recognizes class struggle only as a "descriptive fact," like all liars, sophists, and pedants of the bourgeoisie. MacDonald passes in silence over the experience of Kerensky and the Mensheviks with the SRs in Russia, the similar experience of Hungary, Germany, etc., regarding the creation of a "democratic" and supposedly extra-class government. MacDonald lulls his party and those workers who have the misfortune of taking this bourgeois for a socialist and this philistine for a leader with the words: "We know that this (i.e., the revolutionary crisis, revolutionary fermentation) will pass, will settle down." War inevitably caused a crisis, but after the war, even if not immediately, "everything will settle down"!

And thus writes a man who is the leader of a party wishing to join the Third International. We have here a revelation rare in its frankness and all the more valuable for that, illustrating what is observed no less frequently among the leaders of French socialism and the German Independent Social-Democratic Party, namely: not only inability but also unwillingness to utilize in a revolutionary sense the revolutionary crisis, or in other words, both inability and unwillingness to conduct truly revolutionary preparation of the party and class for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This is the basic evil of very, very many parties now breaking away from the Second International. And precisely for this reason I dwell most of all in those theses which I have proposed to this Congress on the most concrete and precise possible definition of the tasks of preparation for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

One more example. Recently a new book has been published against Bolshevism. Books of such kind are now coming out in Europe and America extraordinarily numerous, and the more books come out against Bolshevism, the stronger and faster sympathies for it grow among the masses. I have in mind the book by Otto Bauer "Bolshevism or Social-Democracy?". Here for the Germans is graphically shown what Menshevism is, the shameful role of which in the Russian revolution is sufficiently understood by workers of all countries. Otto Bauer produced a thoroughly Menshevik pamphlet, though he concealed his sympathy for Menshevism. But in Europe and America it is necessary now to spread more exact knowledge of what Menshevism is, for this is the generic concept for all supposedly socialist, social-democratic and similar directions hostile to Bolshevism. For us Russians it would be tedious to write for Europe about what Menshevism is. Otto Bauer showed this in deed in his book, and we are grateful in advance to the bourgeois and opportunist publishers who will publish it and translate it into various languages. Bauer's book will be a useful, though peculiar supplement to textbooks of communism. Take any paragraph, any argument by Otto Bauer and prove in what there is Menshevism, where there are the roots of views leading to the practice of betrayers of socialism, friends of Kerensky, Scheidemann, etc.—such will be the task which with profit and with success one could propose at "examinations" to check whether communism has been assimilated. If you cannot solve this task, you are not yet a communist and you had better not enter the communist party. (Applause.)

Otto Bauer expressed excellently the entire essence of the views of world-wide opportunism in one phrase, for which—if we freely disposed in Vienna—we ought to have erected a monument to him during his lifetime. The application of violence in the class struggle of contemporary democracies, declared O. Bauer, would be "violence against social factors of force."

Probably you find this sounds strange and incomprehensible? Here is a sample of what Marxism has been reduced to, to what vulgarity and defense of exploiters the most revolutionary theory can be reduced. You need a German variety of philistinism, and you get a "theory" that "social factors of force" are—numbers, organization, place in the process of production and distribution, activity, education. If a farm laborer in the countryside, a worker in the city commits revolutionary violence against a landlord and capitalist, this is not at all the dictatorship of the proletariat, is not at all violence against exploiters and oppressors of the people. Nothing of the sort. This is "violence against social factors of force."

Perhaps my example came out somewhat humorous. But such is the nature of contemporary opportunism that its struggle with Bolshevism turns into humor. To draw the working class, all that is thinking in it, into the struggle of international Menshevism (MacDonalds, O. Bauers and Company) with Bolshevism—this is for Europe and America the most useful, the most pressing matter.

Here we must raise the question, how is explained the durability of such directions in Europe and why is this opportunism in Western Europe stronger than among us. Yes, because the advanced countries have created and are creating their culture on the possibility of living at the expense of a billion of oppressed people. Because the capitalists of these countries receive much more than they could receive as profit from the robbery of workers of their own country.

Before the war it was reckoned that three richest countries, England, France, and Germany, from export of capital alone, not counting other income, have in a year 8–10 billion francs of income.

It is understandable that from this nice sum one can throw even half a billion in a dole to worker leaders, to a workers' aristocracy, to all kinds of bribery. And the whole matter amounts precisely to bribery. This is done in thousands of varied ways: by raising culture in the most important centers, by creating educational institutions, by creating a thousand little places for leaders of cooperatives, for leaders of trade unions, for parliamentary leaders. But this is done everywhere where there are contemporary civilized capitalist relations. And these billions of super-profit are the economic foundation on which opportunism in the workers' movement rests. We have in America, in England, in France immeasurably greater stubbornness of opportunist leaders, the upper stratum of the working class, the aristocracy of workers; they offer stronger resistance to the communist movement. And therefore we must be prepared for the fact that the liberation of European and American workers' parties from this sickness will proceed with greater difficulty than among us. We know that since the founding of the Third International tremendous successes have been made in curing this sickness, but we have not yet reached the decisive end: the cleansing of workers' parties, revolutionary parties of the proletariat throughout the world from bourgeois influence, from opportunists in their own ranks is far from complete.

I shall not dwell on how concretely we must carry this out. This is spoken of in my theses, which have been published. My task is to indicate here the deep economic roots of this phenomenon. This sickness has dragged on, its cure has dragged on longer than optimists could have hoped. Opportunism is our principal enemy. Opportunism in the leadership of the workers' movement is not proletarian but bourgeois socialism. It is practically proved that activists within the workers' movement belonging to the opportunist direction are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie themselves. Without their leadership over the workers the bourgeoisie could not maintain themselves. This is proved not only by the history of the Kerensky regime in Russia, it is proved by the democratic republic in Germany with its social-democratic government at the head, it is proved by Albert Thomas's attitude to his bourgeois government. This is proved by analogous experience in England and in the United States. Here is our principal enemy, and we must achieve victory over this enemy. We must leave the Congress with firm determination that in all parties this struggle be carried through to the end. This is the main task.

Compared with this task, the correction of errors in the "left" tendency in communism will be an easy task. In a whole series of countries we observe anti-parliamentarianism, which is brought not so much by those coming from the petty bourgeoisie as supported by some advanced detachments of the proletariat out of hatred toward old parliamentarianism, out of just, correct, necessary hatred toward the conduct of parliamentary figures in England, in France, in Italy, in all countries. We must give directing instructions from the Communist International, acquaint comrades more closely, more firmly with Russian experience, with the significance of a real proletarian political party. In the decision of this task will consist our work. And the struggle with these errors of the proletarian movement, with these deficiencies will be a thousand times easier than the struggle with that bourgeoisie which under the guise of reformists enters the old parties of the Second International and directs all their work not in a proletarian but in a bourgeois spirit.

Comrades, in conclusion I shall dwell